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Gun-rights groups opposed Colorado mental health bill

Governor John Hickenlooper held a press conference at the state capitol in this Wednesday, March 20, 2013 file photo, after he signed three gun bills earlier in the morning. Colorado State Representatives Lois Court, left, Beth McCann, center, listen to the Governor. (Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post)

Mass murders led Colorado's governor to seek improvements in how the state handles potentially dangerous cases of mental illness, but Second Amendment advocates labeled the proposed legislation "another gun grab" and shrank its scope.

A bill nearing a Senate vote would accomplish one aim of the attempted reform. It would redefine who is dangerous enough to be held for treatment against their will — which supporters say is meant to clarify the process for mental health professionals.

Efforts to make the process easier for those professionals were jettisoned after gun-rights groups objected.

But the National Rifle Association and Rocky Mountain Gun Owners said the initial bill on civil commitment diminished due process and would deprive more Americans of their firearms. One activist called it the liberals' attempt to "play the mental health card" in attacking gun rights.

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"We would do anything possible if we knew it would stop mass murder," said Joe Neville, a spokesman for RMGO. "But this was a backdoor attempt at gun control."

The NRA's Institute for Legislative Action called the bill "a volatile piece of mental health legislation" that could result in additional gun owners losing their constitutional rights.

"Any bill that deals with guns will have difficulties," said the bill's sponsor, Rep. Beth McCann, D-Denver. "And any bill that doesn't deal with guns, but people think it does, will have difficulties."

Furor over last year's gun legislation, which expanded background checks on private sales of firearms and limited ammunition magazines, triggered the recall of two Democratic lawmakers and compelled another to resign to avoid a likely recall election. It made legislators somewhat gun-shy, McCann said.

Yet, unlike the divide over gun control, there had been bipartisan support for reforming the mental health system, McCann said.

When gun control was debated, she said, gun rights activists said the focus should be on mental health, not weaponry. Now the focus is on mental health.

"It's ironic," McCann said.

House Bill 1386, a diluted version of her bill to clarify the civil-commitment process, is what survives the firestorm of objections. It passed the House on Monday with bipartisan support. If approved by the Senate in these last few days of the session, it will change definitions regarding who is enough of a danger to themselves or others to be committed for treatment.

"Legislative alert"

The new bill, sponsored by Rep. Tracy Kraft-Tharp, D-Jefferson County, triggered another "legislative alert" Monday by RMGO, naming and shaming House Republicans who voted for it.

"The gun-grabbers are back at it again, reintroducing an anti-gun bill under the guise of 'mental health,' " the alert states. "You would think the gun-grabbers would get the message after getting their first anti-gun 'mental health' scheme killed earlier this session."

Windsor-based RMGO, established in 1996, is considered an extreme gun-rights group by the NRA.

Neville said the NRA is sometimes willing to compromise when it comes to mental health issues, but RMGO is not.

HB 1386 removes the requirement for involuntary holds that a person pose an "imminent" danger to self or others and simply reads "danger to self or others."

Among its revisions, effective Jan. 1, the definition of danger to self or others would be that "the individual poses a substantial risk of physical harm to himself, or to others," by evidence of "recent threats, attempts at suicide or ... recent homicidal or other violent behavior."

Neville said removing "imminent" made the definition vague enough to include anyone making even the slightest potential threat.

A possible result of the modifications, according to the Colorado Legislative Council, could be an increase in holds and acceleration of the process.

RMGO says the bill "radically rewrites the definition of who may be deemed as mentally unfit to possess a firearm to defend themselves and their families."

Kraft-Tharp said the new definitions are not intended to expand the potential pool of those who can be committed.

"This is a really tough decision for the people who have to make it. It's a traumatic situation for those going through a mental health crisis," she said. "It absolutely needs to be the measure of last resort. We have a responsibility to make it as clear as possible."

Three existing laws

McCann's bill, HB 1253, would have rewritten the state's three existing laws on mental health commitments into one comprehensive set of rules clarifying procedures and rights for emergency holds and extended treatment. Right now, there are different statutes for those with mental health issues, those who abuse alcohol and those who abuse other substances.

The bill also sought to remove the option for a jury trial and rely only on a judge's decision to certify an involuntary hold, which gun-rights advocates said could leave people's freedom in the hands of a single anti-gun judge. That change, too, has been dropped.

"Removal of the option to choose a jury trial in civil commitment and substance-abuse adjudications ... is a thinly veiled attempt to infringe on your Second Amendment rights," the NRA stated online.

The NRA initially argued McCann's bill would expand the instances when individuals' names must be submitted to a national background-check system. Federal law prohibits ownership of a gun by anyone who "has been adjudicated as a mental defective or committed to a mental institution."

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